How is elm for firewood?

It's likely to be an American Elm, due to it's size only! There are isolated examples of the real thing that simply missed the elm blight of the 50's and 60's. When they were coming down in my childhood in NJ, my family burned the logs, but I don't remember a bad smell.
Sounds like you'll have a great supply of fire wood! I'd only take down the other tree if you think there is something wrong with it, or if - with the elm gone - the maple could hit the house. In hurricane Gustav, here in LA we lost the roof, and had trees (big ones) in the house. That kind of damage is hard/expensive to recover from. Growing up in Jersey, there was an expression, "the first 100 years, the trees protect the house...." with the 2nd part left out! Discretion is the better part of valor these days with such strong storms. It's expensive to take them down if you don't do it yourself, but cheaper than a new roof. Good luck with this! ldc

Thanks for the picture. It looks like a nice healthy tree, but you're right, it is close to the house. It'll be a shame to cut it down, but you have to do what you have to do. Maybe you could have that log milled into lumber and have something nice made of it.

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Vicker
If you're born to hang, you'll never drown.

Twisted grain, but is relatively heavy and so has some decent BTU value.

Our house is built in a former sand mine and any of the trees that were planted were planted from the mid-60s on. This tree is the tallest one in the "pit" of the mine so I'd expect it was one of the earliest planted down there. We moved in 21 years ago and it was a huge tree even back then.

I'd only take down the other tree if you think there is something wrong with it, or if - with the elm gone - the maple could hit the house. In hurricane Gustav, here in LA we lost the roof, and had trees (big ones) in the house. That kind of damage is hard/expensive to recover from. Growing up in Jersey, there was an expression, "the first 100 years, the trees protect the house...." with the 2nd part left out! Discretion is the better part of valor these days with such strong storms. It's expensive to take them down if you don't do it yourself, but cheaper than a new roof. Good luck with this! ldc[/QUOTE]

The maple is pretty small but not that healthy but if it fell, I don't think it would hit the house. This definitely would if it went over in that direction. Sandy had northeasterly winds (the prevailing wind for us in storms) so the house would have been safe but I just worry. The biggest damage by the south facing shores was water but everywhere else it was trees and even now you still have to drive around the debris piles that are everywhere. I'm of the feeling "get rid of it if it's a risk" so I'm thinking unless it's perfectly healthy, it's going.

I just realized that you can see the tree in our backyard that fell! If you look at the sycamore that is up front with the plantings around the base and look through it just to the left, you'll see a pine way in the back VERY tall just under the fourth branch on the left of the sycamore. That was a 70+ foot tree that came down in the storm but hit nothing other than another tree. We were so fortunate!

par excellent....use a sharp chain

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Brenda Groth
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We burned a Slippery Elm last winter. No complaints.

elm is about all the wood I can get, and have burnt it for 30 years, works for us,

We burned almost exclusively elm this past winter and were not impressed. It was free, though, so I should not complain. I want to know if anyone has ever had an issue with 'rocks' that look like pieces of asphalt in the wood stove while shoveling out the ash....I initially thought the firebrick was breaking into pieces, but it's not. There are a lot of these 'rocks' in there - they are black and range in size from a golf ball to the size of my small hands. They really do look like pieces of broken asphalt - like when new potholes form and the pieces of the road are scattered all over. We have a large wood stove, and we filled an ash bucket easily with them. I googled like crazy, and have found nothing. Anyone with an answer?

I hope they are not chunks of creosote falling out of your chimney.

How often do you sweep your chimney and do you often damp down the air supply to you woodstove?

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Beautiful cabinet wood. Maybe you could trade

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http://tnwoodwright.blogspot.com/

The old rhyme says
Elm wood burns like churchyard mould
E'en the very flames are cold.

We've never burnt it so don't know how true it is.

There are several types of elm in our area. It all burns good in the heating stove, but if the limbs hang down instead of going up... its a real bugger to split. I found it much easier to bust if you turn it upside down from the way it grew. Then theres one kind of elm that smells a bit like having the fire put out by the boy scout jamboree....

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"Nothing so needs reforming as other peoples habits." Mark Twain

These are called elm clinkers. We heat with wood and have access to a lot of dead elm trees for "free" (except the labor, saw, gas, etc.). Not good for mid-winter overnight heat but fine during the day or warmer nights. Lots of hard clinkers to carry out with the ash.

Is the elm in question losing bark on the bottom part? Looks like the lower is lighter-colored in the yard photo. Better to take a diseased tree down on your time than after it damages something.

Peg

No - It's just the shading on the tree. The bark is definitely solid. I will have a tree expert come to look at the tree but they are still busy from Sandy, if you can believe it!